Canelo Alvarez re-filed Golden Boy DAZN lawsuit

The twisting, turning soap opera involving four division World Champion, Canelo Alvarez, his promoter Oscar De La Hoya/Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN has another swerve. This as Alvarez’s lawyers met the California Federal court judge’s deadline to amend and re-file their $280 million suit.

Boxing insider Dan Rafael posted on social media Tuesday night that Alvarez’s Southern California attorneys met the Monday deadline to make the corrections on whom/what entities he’s suing:

As expected @Canelo has re-filed his suit against @GoldenBoyBoxing, @OscarDeLaHoya and @DAZN_USA.

— Dan Rafael (@DanRafael1) September 30, 2020

As we wrote last week, there was a mediation session that reportedly lasted some 10 hours trying to get Alvarez, Golden Boy and DAZN to settle their differences out of court. According to The Athletic, Alvarez was reportedly offered an amended new contract, guaranteeing him significantly less than the $35 million per fight on his original DAZN deal. However, the offer included an incentive for DAZN subscribers added, in exchange for him being willing to get back in the ring before the end of this year.

Canelo was reportedly in attendance via Zoom along with DAZN Chief Operating Officer Ed McCarthy, Golden Boy owner and Boxing Hall of Famer, De La Hoya and their chief matchmaker, Eric Gomez.

According to the Athletic, the mediator was given both Alvarez’s contract with Golden Boy, as well as the promotion’s deal with DAZN, and in the Athletic’s terminology- the two offers “do not mesh,” when it comes to who gets to dictate what opponents Alavarez fights.

The Athletic went on to say that Alvarez was given an offer last Tuesday of $20 million per fight moving forward on a deal that still has eight fights remaining.

It has been widely reported the DAZN has been seeking for Canelo to take a significant pay cut not only due to the Covid 19 pandemic this year what DAZN’s inability to maintain subscribers / revenue with its U.S. streaming service.

Angered by being prevented from fighters that he wanted to fight this fall, Alvarez filed his lawsuit two weeks ago in California Federal Court. However, the judge assigned to the case quickly dismissed it for improper filing of defendants.  But, the contingency he gave Alvarez and his lawyers was they had until Monday to refile an amended version of it.

And, in a sign that the mediation didn’t work, that’s what they’ve done.

The suit made clear that DAZN was trying to force Alvarez to fight former Undisputed Middleweight champion, Gennady Golovkin, for a third time. But, Alvarez continues to maintain, now in the legal filing, that he has every right to rebuff that third fight. That part of the suit read partially,

“Prior to these discussions with Defendants, Alvarez was unaware that DAZN believed Golden Boy Promotions had promised that he would fight Golovkin, unaware that the DAZN Contract gave DAZN the right to reject the opponents he selected, and was unaware that the DAZN Contract contained clauses potentially inconsistent with those of the Alvarez Contract.”

Alvarez, Golden Boy and DAZN have been in a “standoff,” as to who his next fight would be against. This had included the possibility of Canelo fighting another British Super middleweight and WBA champ, Callum Smith. But, that fight has yet to materialize.

Canelo has not been in the ring since he competed for the first time at the Light Heavyweight, beating WBO champ Sergey Kovalev by 11th round TKO last November. That’s his only fight in the last 17 months with the now continued squabbling under the Golden Boy/DAZN deal.

Canelo reportedly wants to fight Turkish Super Middleweight contender, Avni Yildirim, later this fall, but that was apparently rejected by DAZN. So, now, he took the blockbuster legal move to try to end his deal with Golden Boy and DAZN.

Most importantly, we continue to wait to see, if any part of this means that Alvarez will be back in the ring before the end of year or not?